Occupational Therapy

Identify alternative and keywords to describe each PICO component. Consider the following questions to uncover alternative and keywords for each component: 

Population

• Who is the patient?
• What is the population or disorder of interest?
• What are key characteristics of the patient, problem or population?
• What health concerns are of interest? 

Intervention

• What is the intervention or event? 
• What therapeutic, diagnostic, preventative or other health care actions or processes are of interest? 
• What do you want to do for the patient or population?  

Comparison (if applicable)

• Is there an alternative intervention? 
• What is the intervention being compared to?

Outcome

• What is the effect of the treatment/intervention?
• What are the results of the intervention? 
• What are you trying to accomplish, improve, or effect?

MeSH stands for Medical Subject Headings. Use MeSh subject headings to improve your search results.  These subject headings can be referred to as controlled vocabulary. It is how the database recognizes medical laguage. PubMed uses MeSH Subject Headings.